Art commission by my super talented friend Adrian

Character backstory below.

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The Crown of the World is cold, desolate, and unforgiving.


When Zurik’s tribe had been forced to flee north by lingering demons from the worldwound, he took it upon himself to tend to the fires that the tribe needed to stay warm. As a red scaled kobold, he naturally resisted the searing heat of the bonfires keeping the rest of the tribe alive, so he tended to sit closer to them, often poking them with his bare hands to maintain the flame. Having found a lost tome about Atreia, the Lambent King, Zurik approached his job with near-reverence, taking up worship of the imprisoned deity.


The blizzard caught all of them off guard. With no time to prepare shelters and without any cover, the only choice the tribe had was to build a bonfire and huddle around it. Zurik did his best to manage the fire, climbing deep into the pyre to keep the flame burning. He didn’t care about the smoke clogging his nose and stinging his eyes; the flames licking over his body and burning off his clothes; the heat singing his fingers and worming its way into his soul. All he cared about was keeping the rest of his tribe alive through the blizzard.

When the wind died down and Zurik climbed out of the charred remains of the bonfire, he didn’t notice the snow melting at his feet, or the heat of the flame continuing to warm his body far beyond the time it had burnt out. All Zurik could see were the bodies, frozen over and half buried in snow, scattered around the fire. Even those that had been closest to the fire were still, the tips of their fingers blackened where they had reached out to the flame.

Zurik looked down at his own hands, still the same bright red that they had always been, and wept.


It was almost a relief when Zurik first saw signs of civilization again, the town in the distance drawing closer with every step he took, Atreia’s tome clutched firmly to his chest.

He was already half unconscious by the time he collapsed on the street, missing the surprised shouts as the darkness closed in around his vision. Gentle hands felt his body and then quickly withdrew as their owners let out hisses of startled pain. He barely noticed when he was lifted up, the human carrying him ignoring the crowd gathering around them as he was brought into a nearby house.

He didn’t have the strength to object to the tome being gently pried from his grasp as he was lowered into a tub and cleaned; the water turning to steam upon making contact with him.

The blacksmith and his wife, the kind humans that had bathed and fed Zurik, explained that he was in Rostland in the nation of Brevoy, far east of the Sarkoris Scar. They offered to let Zurik stay with them for a while until he felt well enough to travel again, and he agreed.


Zurik spent much of his time with the humans watching the blacksmith work in his shop, listening to stories about how Zurik reminded them of their son before he left to join Brevoy’s military. At night, Zurik would stare into the fireplace, watching the ghosts of his tribe dance in the flames.

Eventually, Zurik said farewell to the humans, packing a bag and traveling south with his tome, hoping only to distance himself from the Crown of the World and its cold, unforgiving desolation.